The state of Hawaii on Thursday night filed a court challenge to the Trump administration’s limitations on travelers from six Muslim-majority nations, moments after it went into effect.
The state asked a federal judge to clarify that the administration cannot enforce a temporary ban against certain relatives, according to The Hill.
President Donald Trump’s travel ban went into effect on Thursday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, two days after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decided to revive parts of the ban.
Currently, administration guidelines say that travelers from the affected countries can only come into the U.S. to visit spouses, parents, children, siblings or sons- and daughters-in-law.
Hawaii’s challenge seeks to expand the exemptions to include “fiancés, grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins of people currently living in the United States”, according to The Hill.
“In Hawaii, ‘close family’ includes many of the people that the federal government decided on its own to exclude from that definition,” Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, this severely limited definition may be in violation of the Supreme Court ruling.”
The Supreme Court in Monday’s ruling exempted people from the travel ban if they could prove a “bona fide” relationship with a U.S. citizen or entity.
The travel ban in question is an updated order issued by Trump after his initial order was dismissed by the court. The order is temporary, until proper vetting procedures – a central campaign promise of Trump’s – can be implemented.
Hawaii was one of several states that appealed the updated ban before Monday’s Supreme Court ruling.
Source material can be found at this site.
